


of one ash and dust

by asdfgjkl



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Death due to natural causes, Future Fic, M/M, Old men in (subtle) love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3800308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asdfgjkl/pseuds/asdfgjkl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The steady progress of life after humanity's victory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of one ash and dust

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [De una ceniza y polvo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3849913) by [Star_Gore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Gore/pseuds/Star_Gore)



“You’re, what, forty now?” Levi scoffed. “If you don’t marry soon, you’re going to rot and die alone, old man.”

“Die and rot. You have the order wrong.”

“No, I don’t.”

Somehow in his silence, Erwin still didn’t miss a beat. He kept his eyes fixed on the box he’s brought in to clear up his desk, hand rearranging its contents, wrestling with the books that were prone to fall flat so there was extra space for the fountain pen he was rather fond of, the pen’s casing, its special ink, and the cute little whatever Hanji gave him two years ago on his birthday. Erwin was sure she was drunk, but had accepted it anyway, taking it as a sign of her goodwill.

Levi stood up from where he was half-sitting on the edge of Erwin’s desk, the grinding of his boots against the parched floor producing an unbecoming noise. “Need help?”

“Please,” Erwin said, finally looking up at the other man as he used the back of his hand to wipe off the sweat that’s been collecting on his forehead.

“The Great Commander Erwin losing to a stack of books,” Levi murmured almost condescendingly. “Who’d have guessed?” He rounded the table and proceeded to stuff everything in Erwin’s open drawer into the tight-fitting space, bending down before finally giving in and crouching, allowing for an easier back and forth. Levi’s movements were rough jerks, devoid of the usual lithe grace he displayed outside the walls.

“Careful with that,” Erwin said as Levi dumped a tiny pocket knife into the box, his tone airy enough for Levi to dismiss his words with ease.

For a few moments then, the only sounds in the room were various clinking and rustlings as Levi neatened the inside of the box, packing and repacking with his own brand of freaky control.

He looked up at Erwin when he was done, only to find piercing blue already staring back at him.

They stayed like that for a while – Erwin enjoying the first true feeling of tranquility in years and Levi content to let the silence stretch out.

His knees were beginning to hurt from being bent for so long. He wasn’t as young as he used to be; wasn’t as dangerously pretty as the first time he stepped into the wild beyond on horseback, eyes murderous with freedom. He’s gained some of the worn and seasoned flavor that spoke more of Erwin than him, wary now of monsters who robbed not his own life but his comrades’.

“Where will you be?” Erwin asked, voice throatier than it should be. Levi knew he didn’t mean after this but after  _this_ , when they were both settled into homes they knew Levi would never really settle into.

“Around,” Levi replied, hesitant.

It wasn’t the answer he wanted to give – not the one itching to crawl up his throat and out of his mouth – but it would make do.

Finally, Levi got up and sighed. He was going to miss him.

 

 

Levi stuffed his freezing hands back into the pockets of his jacket after ringing the doorbell thrice. A strong urge to commit atrocious crimes upon the bastard who’s taking his own sweet time to answer the door emerged within him, his scowl deepening when he realized that was only possible if the man actually opened his door sometime this century.

Patience was never his forte, and Levi was about to call it a day and just leave before frostbite devoured him whole when the large, wooden structure before him swished open with surprising gusto.

But perhaps most surprising of all was the voice he hadn’t heard in an aching forever, ringing loud and clear in the small doorway of Erwin’s house, across his patio and bounding back towards the both of them.

“Levi!”

He sounded so happy that all the alibis Levi’s been rehearsing for this day crumbled into useless pieces. Why hadn’t he visited sooner?

“Wh-,”Erwin started, but was interrupted by Levi’s small mass pushing past him, into the warmth of his cozy, cozy living room.

_The significance of life questions, Levi decided, lost out to his survival instincts._

 

 

A mug of rich, hot chocolate later, Levi was heavily inclined to forgive Erwin for leaving him out in the cold for so long.

Erwin noted the obvious change in attitude with amusement, eyes twinkling like he was thirty again and had seen Levi somersault through air and slash at a titan’s nape for the first time.

Levi, Erwin thought, was like a cat. Especially with the way his knees were drawn up to his chest, both hands clasped around his lower limbs as they held onto a plain, white glass. It was the protectiveness of the gesture; the untrusting vibe he radiated.

“What?” he finally snapped, when Erwin’s staring started bugging even him.

There was a smile tugging on the corner of Erwin’s lips, coy and hidden, like someone fingering the hem of their shirt. “After three years,” he started, shaking his head. “Why did you come back, Levi?”

Now that was a difficult one. He had prepared a speech for why he had left – the air was bad for him, the people were bad for him, the phantom of a person lingering in dead spaces was bad for him – so of course that wasn’t the question Erwin asked. The damned mind reader.

He shrugged. “Do I need a reason?”

“Not really.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“Your sentence,” Levi elaborated, slightly irritated at Erwin for spinning him around. “It doesn’t sound complete.”

“Doesn’t it?”

His tendency to play unfriendly games with people was the worst.

Levi chose to ignore him after that, taking another sip of the godly drink Erwin brewed. If there was one thing worth visiting Erwin more for, it was this.

At least that was what he told himself the next few times he came over.

 

 

“You don’t even have a girlfriend?” Levi repeated, horrified.

They were lounging in Erwin’s library – lounging being a loose description of Erwin’s serious posture and Levi’s less-than-serious, lying-on-the-couch attitude – when the subject was brought up. Since the first winter a few years back, Levi’s made sure to dedicate at least one day out of three hundred and sixty five for the Commander, lest he died of loneliness. And he also made sure that one day was a day of relatively habitable temperature, so his first sentence could be an actual greeting – “Are you married?” – instead of a violent shove for hot chocolate.

Levi didn’t know why he still bothered asking. It wasn’t like he ever saw Erwin as the husband type, or even the boyfriend type.  _Maybe_  the rich, casual fling in Southern Sina type, where the weather was kind all year long, but even that was stretching it.

It’s just become a sort of ritual, since that day he wasted on hoisting Erwin’s possessions out of his office and into a borrowed car.

“Levi,” came Erwin’s voice from behind his study. “I’m trying to read.”

That meant  _shut up_  in Erwin’s overly-polite vocabulary.

Levi begrudgingly complied, flipping his book open so he could also start reading.

After all, one needed valid reasons to constantly visit one’s Commander, and an intense discussion on books always seemed legitimate during the warmer weathers, when begging for hot cocoa sounded unreasonable.

 

 

There were things neither of them spoke of.

The last fight against the titans was one of them.

Today had been officially christened as Memorial Day after humanity’s victory. It was a day in which silences were pledged in commemoration of lost brothers and sisters. It was a day when veterans – not that there were many – lined the streets and paraded around town square in their uniform. It was a day in which the survivors were celebrated, and the victims mourned.

In a sense, it was also  _their_  day. Possibly the biggest day their military careers had amounted to, and Levi hated it.

Levi hated Memorial Day.

Erwin never shared his feelings, but Levi knew – just like how he knew at first guess that Erwin slept on the right side of the bed because it was by the wall and he needed a solid fixture to ground him sometimes, or how he knew that Erwin sometimes fasted because one day a year for all the lives he’s sacrificed could never be enough – that he hated Memorial Day too.

That’s why Levi always made sure they spent it together.

Here they were in Erwin’s backyard, sitting in those squeaky, old-men chairs Levi had laughed at the first time he stumbled upon them, before discovering how comfy they were to slouch in, their natural swing a weird comfort. Their panorama was a beautiful, backside view of their neighbor’s brick wall, and the sun was setting so that it casted a nice, golden glow onto the tips of their feet and illuminated the rest of the place with a drowsy ambiance.

Levi liked this much more than Memorial Day.

“Why are you smiling?” Erwin asked from beside him.

The Corporal had his eyes closed. Why bother when he could practically see the teasing smirk?

“It’s a nice day.”

Why bother lying when Erwin saw through him as easily as breathing?

 

 

“You don’t swear anymore,” Erwin muttered in awe one day.

“Yet you’re still spending your days alone,” Levi answered in mock pity.

“Levi, I’m sixty two,” Erwin said with a casual wave of his hand. “Hardly a time to get married.”

Levi turned to look at him. He was sitting on the side of the bed because Levi’s sprawled form took up most of the space. “You’d pass for fifty,” he affirmed at last. “Or you can just tell them who you are.”

“Abuse my status as a war hero?” Erwin gasped. “ _Never_.”

Levi rolled his eyes and buried his face back into the pillow, successfully hogging the blanket in one swift pull. “Get out,” he said. “I want to sleep.”

“This my room or yours?” Erwin asked fondly, though he still complied, standing up to stretch and slip on his indoor sandals before exiting the room, leaving Levi to his own business.

They were too old to be fooling around in bed, but Erwin’s found that sleeping – simply sleeping and feeling the bed dip when Levi crawled in after midnight, finally tired enough to ignore the images haunting him behind shut lids; waking up to a mouthful of greying hair and slender arms and legs draped over him – was the best kind of pleasure.

Levi, he was sure, would attest to the truth of that.

 

 

At seventy eight Erwin was stuck in a wheelchair, and Levi had stopped asking Erwin if he would leave him the house after that impending thing they no longer talked about, because there was no way Levi was passing before him.

“I’m not that frail, shithead,” he used to say. “So of course the house is going to me.”

There was it – the one endearment that would not go away even after Levi’s cussing grew relatively tamer. It wasn’t like Erwin minded, anyway. He was proud of anything Levi was brilliant in.

“God, you’re heavy,” Levi huffed from behind, once he managed to push Erwin up the slope of a tiny hill. There was a tree here they had started claiming as theirs some twenty years ago, and because they were around so often the public had also accepted this shade as theirs.

 _Erwin’s_ , they’d call it. Or  _Levi’s_. Or  _Erwin and Levi’s both_.

Levi produced a clean, plaid cloth from the pouch hanging off Erwin’s wheelchair and unfolded it, laying it on the ground, only sitting down after he was satisfied with its placement. He then leaned against the bark – which Erwin would argue was also dirty, thus defeating the whole point of the cloth, but Erwin no longer believed Levi was scared of dirty things he couldn’t control; it was just the habit of it that he bought into – and closed his eyes.

A breeze flitted past them, stirring their grey hairs into a funky updo.

“What are you thinking of?”

“You.”

He didn’t allow words to be stopped at the throat anymore. There wasn’t nearly enough time in life for that.

“What about me?”

Levi peeled his eyelids open, slowly.

“What do you think the kids are up to now?”

“I thought you were thinking about me?” Erwin teased, though sobered up after realizing Levi was serious.

There was really only one living group of people Levi would refer to as kids with that much affection, as if he had raised them himself. Well, he sort of did.

Erwin made a contemplative noise. “Last I heard, Eren’s the owner of a big firm, so of course Mikasa’s working there too. Armin’s head of a research institute. Sasha’s married to a bakery. Jean and Connie have a joint venture. A martial arts school, I think.”

Levi frowned. “Jean and Connie?”

“Jean and Connie.”

“Weirdass kids,” he murmured, to which Erwin laughed.

“So, you were thinking about me?”

“Was not,” Levi answered petulantly.

Erwin gave him a second.

“I was just thinking of how stupid you are.”

 _There you go_ , he thought, smiling.

 

 

Of course the house ended up being his. As Levi stared at the freshly-made tombstone erected underneath a great tree, he felt, yes, sadness, but also peace. In the final months of Erwin’s deteriorating health, Levi had come to fear this day, shrinking away each time it was barely alluded to.

But standing here, not a single flower in hand because those sentiments were useless – Erwin appreciated his presence, or nothing at all – it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

He knew that Erwin would be right there on the precipice, just waiting for him to cross over.

In time, he would.

 

 

It took longer than expected because Levi was, once again, not frail.

The kids were with him when it happened. It was a bit after dinner and he was already settling into bed because that was how things got when one turned older – there was never enough rest.

Armin was telling a story and Jean was laughing. Eren was fuming, with only Mikasa’s hand on his shoulder preventing him from lashing out. Connie and Sasha sat in the corner, discussing something that made both their eyes light up. Historia exuded regality from the seat in the middle of the room.

Levi was reminded of the old days, and of course the old days wouldn’t be complete without his Commander, who was leaning against the wall, to the side, handsome smile Levi hasn’t seen in years pulling on his lips.

He’s come to pick him up, Levi thought.

“You look glad to see me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Levi breathed, voice weak but still loud enough to be heard over the ruckus in the bedroom he used to share with Erwin, causing everyone to still and turn to him.

“What?” Eren asked.

Levi, unlike the unfortunate majority of humanity, had the chance to smile and say, “Goodbye, brats,” before extending a hand to Erwin, feeling the fingers he’d missed dearly curling around it, leading him to a new adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean they finally met in the manga and the manga looks like it's going to end soon so this was totally begging to be written. Well not _this_ specifically, but some sort of eruri yeah. Okay. Bye. Hope you enjoyed reading ow o


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